Dell to offer Android-based phone: report

[renegade9999]

Last Updated: Wednesday, October 7, 2009 | 6:29 PM ET
The Associated Press

Dell is working on a smartphone that runs Google's Android phone operating system, according to a newspaper report Wednesday.

The touchscreen phone could be ready for U.S. carrier AT&T early next year, the Wall Street Journal reported. Representatives for Dell, AT&T and Google all declined to comment.

In the year since the economic meltdown, businesses and consumers have sharply cut back spending on Dell's main products — computers and servers. Research groups IDC and Gartner have both predicted a year-over-year decline in PC shipments in 2009, which would be the first such drop since 2001.

Mobile is one area where Dell sees a chance to expand and diversify. Dell hired Ron Garriques, a Motorola cellphone division executive, to lead its consumer technology group in 2007. That sparked rumours that the PC maker was readying a smartphone.

Garriques told analysts at a meeting in July that wireless carriers want a consumer "solution" from Dell, but didn't give any specific details about design, hardware or software plans.

In August, Dell showed off what appeared to be a smartphone at a Beijing event hosted by China's biggest cell phone carrier, China Mobile. The Round Rock, Tex.-based PC maker said it was a "proof-of-concept mobile device prototype."

Android, which is free for phone makers to use and modify, is increasingly making its way onto higher-end phones as a potential rival to Apple's iPhone. AT&T is the iPhone's exclusive carrier in the United States, but AT&T has not shied away from offering competing units, such as BlackBerry devices and phones that run Microsoft's Windows Mobile software.